Word: mahere
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...name of this creed is evangelical atheism. Now, atheism is certainly not a religion, and the phrase “evangelical atheism” certainly appears oxymoronic. But we have witnessed in our time the rise of a virulent strain of atheism championed by Bill Maher, the comedian and star of Religulous, the secularist philosopher Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and their often indignant ilk. For all its schooling and pretense of intellectualism, this godless vanguard unknowingly adopts the very aspects of religion its leaders passionately lambaste and turns atheism into the kind of evangelical ideology it opposes...
...facets of evangelism most repellent to atheists are bigotry, proselytism, and an unquestioning certainty in the tenets of one’s faith. Secular atheism spurns all of these things, but the evangelical atheism of Maher and Dawkins has chosen to embrace them...
...During the height of conservative whispers about then-candidate Barack Obama’s secret adherence to Islam, Maher parried the smears with one of his own, saying, “…You can’t be president if you practice a violent, Middle-Eastern religion and worship a genocidal desert god, which is why [Alaska Governor] Sarah Palin can’t be president...
...Maher may be right when he says that a candidate’s literal belief in scripture makes him or her ill-suited for high office due to the importance of having a rational hand on the levers of power. However, Maher then subverts his credibility by condescendingly condemning religious belief as fundamentally irrational, describing belief in God as maintaining that “…You’re in a long-term relationship with an all-powerful space-daddy, who will, after you die, party with your ghost forever...
...science. It simply requires faith in something that cannot be proven. After all, the logic of religious apologists, though circular, is correct in insisting that God’s existence cannot be disproved, either. Atheism, as opposed to agnosticism, therefore, requires faith as well. By scorning faith in God, Maher is simply scorning beliefs that he does not share but cannot rebut. Surely this sounds familiar...